Peperoni Arosto

Well, am not sure if this is really peperoni arosto, but this is my version of it, and it tastes pretty damn good.
Can be used as a topping on toasted garlic bread like a Crostini, or can be eaten with lavash crackers. I intend to use this in a pasta, to get a smoked bell pepper flavor next time. Another idea is to add this to a salad, with tons of feta cheese, and may be some pineapple cubes. If all else doesn't work out, you can slip in these smoked peppers into your mouth as it is!

This dish takes a long time to make, but is very easy, and can be made well ahead in time. I've noticed that it stays well in the fridge for up to a week.

Method -
1. Over roast full bell peppers at 200C for 30-45 min, till the skin blackens.
2. Once roasted, keep them in an airtight container for 10 min.
3. When the peppers are still hot, peel the skin off and chop coarse.
4. Mix in washed parsley , oregano, sea salt, red chili flakes, grated/chopped garlic and extra virgin olive oil.
5. Store in an airtight container for up to a week

Baked tomatoes with garlic

Sometime last year, there was this chain-reaction-like thing. Everyone I knew was baking these tomatoes, and posting the pic on their timeline, and I could smell these beauties from within the comp. Yeah, that’s possible ;-)!

There is no recipe to this awesome dish, and there is no decided way in which you can use this too. I have mashed the baked tomatoes and used them as a dip when we feasted on a Mediterranean-type dinner. This goes well with garlic bread, or with bread sticks too. One time, I mashed it well, and used it as a pasta sauce. Then, there are a zillion times these tomatoes didn’t even make it out of this tray. I stood at the kitchen counter and polished off all of them in one go, many times! :)

Here’s how we make this -

1. Cut the tomatoes into halves along the spine and arrange in a bake-safe dish.
2. Crush garlic pods and insert into the tomatoes. ( I inserted an average of 3 thick pods for two halves).
3. Sprinkle sea-salt and pepper generously. Drizzle virgin olive oil more than generously on these halves.
4. I used my herbed olive oil, and even topped the halves with some of those herbs.
5. Preheat the oven to 200 C, and bake this for 60-90 min at 120 C or 140 C. (depends on the oven, I had to bake for 90 min). The key is to get a heavenly smell in the kitchen! 😄

Eggless bread pudding

A couple of days ago, something very delectable appeared on my FB feed. HaathiTime was craving carbs, and posted a very yummy photo of the bread pudding she made. And that’s it. It was like madness creeping onto me. I HAD TO TRY IT!

The recipe she posted had egg, so I had to make it eggless, and so I had to customize the recipe a bit. And then, this pregnant friend of mine at work had been asking me to bake her something , and so where others at work. I thought, why not make a big batch of bread pudding and serve everyone I know at work! :)

How to make Vegan Parmesan Cheese

*peeks into the blog*
Hello. Hi. How are you guys doing? All the four of you that visit my blog regularly ? :-)
Thanks a lot. No, really.
I’ve been away, and how! I won’t even give silly excuses on how life was busy or work was hectic or anything. I’ve been lazy. Plain lazy. And feeling a bit burnt out. Don’t ask me, of what! :-)

So to start blogging again, here is a simple post.
Something so simple, that you can make it in a jiffy.
Something so essential that your dishes will not taste the same once you start using it.
And something so nutritional yet tasty that it’ll pump you up instantly.

Chilli cornbread, with some Indian flavors

The other day, I reached home to an almost empty fridge with a rumbling stomach and a desire to make something quick for a snack. After having read Siri’s recipe for the cornbread, I was craving for some , and set out to make my own…

One love… Garlic bread!

 

Is there anyone under this big, bright, beautiful, blue sky who doesn’t love Garlic bread? One person? Show me one person who doesn’t and I’ll make him a convert. :-D

I was lost in this big world of numerous garlic bread choices, wondering which one to make my favourite, and then my dear friend, Nandita told me how to make my own garlic bread. Its the simplest ever method to make your own garlic bread, though not from scratch.

Seasoned Cornbread casserole

 

Oh well, there is no story behind this dish. I was just browsing through the Wine & Dine section of NYTimes and saw some gorgeous Thanksgiving recipes. Though that is not a festival celebrated in India, and it is still weeks away for the actual festival, I thought, why not make it this weekend !Also since the winter is finally arriving in Hyderabad, making something with cornmeal sounded just appropriate.

And there… I tried this, and loved the way it tasted. Its like a whole package – taste with great health packed in it.
Since we are not vegans, I did not feel the need to use applesauce or non-dairy milk. Yogurt did the trick for me, as usual.
Also, I didn’t have any Cajun seasoning at hand, so I reached out to my herb tray (one of most favourite items in my kitchen. This tray full of dried herbs – oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, dill, parsley, chilli flakes, two varieties of basil, some seasonings, couple of varieties of pepper – most of these from Keya) and mixed the seasoning per the family’s palette, and that worked too.
By the time the vegetable mixture was made, the whole kitchen started smelling curry-like, and very appetizing. :-)

Original recipe here.

Ingredients
For the vegetable preparation-
Tomatoes , medium sized – 6, diced
Onion , medium sized – 2, diced
Garlic cloves 6
Bell pepper –1 seeded and diced
Mixture of kidney and chick-pea beans - 1 cup , soaked for atleast 6 hours and pressure cooked
Olive oil – 2 tbsp

For the cornbread-
Cornmeal or makkai ata – 1 cup
Baking powder - 1 1/2 teaspoons
Pinch of salt
Yogurt – 1 1/4 Cup
Garlic – 3 cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning (commercial blend, or make your own)

For the seasoning -
Equal measures (atleast 1 tbsp) of the following -
Coarsely ground black pepper
Coarsely ground white/green pepper
Dried Basil
Dried Oregano
Dried Thyme
Ground Coriander
Ground Cumin
Red chilli flakes
Chilli powder

Instructions

1. In a skillet or a pan, heat the oil and sauté the onions and bell peppers till they are cooked. Add some seasoning, approximately 2 tbsps to this so that the vegetable mixture has its own flavour.
2. Add the boiled kidney beans and the chick-peas and mix well and take the skillet off the heat.
3. Now prepare for the bread. Preheat the oven to 200 C
4. Mix the corn bread, baking powder, salt, finely chopped garlic and the seasoning. Add yogurt to this and mix well. This mixture should be spreadable.
5. In the baking dish, pour the vegetable-bean mixture and press well.
6. Now spread the bread batter on top of this evenly and bake for 30 mins, or till a tester comes out clean

My Notes

1. Since cornbread was never a favourite in the house, the next time I make it, I will add more seasoning to the cornbread batter. And also some green finely chopped green chillies, may be some roasted onions and some cilantro leaves. This is just to remove the very corn-like smell from the corn-bread
2. In an attempt to salvage the nutrients in the tomatoes, I did not drain out the water from them. This , thankfully , did not make the bread soggy but all this water settled at the bottom of the dish, along with the vegetables. So next time around, I will add some salt to the tomatoes and let the water drain by. May be I will drink the water just as it is, like how I did to the water left over from the boiled kidney beans :-)

Bell Pepper Wheat Rotti

Akki rotti(rotti here doesn’t mean roti,its more like a mix between Dosa and roti) is a very popular Mangalorean dish, mostly eaten along with chai (tea) for snacks. This is generally made with rice flour, and is applied on a non-stick casserole and toasted till brown and chewy. It is then eaten with either a pickle or coconut chutney.
This recipe is a slight variation of the Akki Rotti mentioned above, and incorporates the healthier aspects of my Mom and cousin’s Ragi(rye) rotti. Loads of vegetables, clarified butter for the good fat and wheat and rye flour for the fibre content, and voila, you have a very healthy snack!
Ingredients:
Whole Wheat flour - 1 cup
Rye flour - 1/2 cup (optional)
Desiccated coconut powder - 1/2 cup
Salt - a pinch
Indian yogurt - Mixed into a pouring consistency, just enough to mix the ingredients into a batter - approximately 1 cup
Green chillies, finely chopped - 2
Onion, medium, finely chopped - 1
Green bell pepper, finely chopped - 1
Cilantro, finely chopped - a handful

Method:
1. Mix all the ingredients into a batter, preferably pancake batter consistency
2. Heat the non-stick pan and slightly apply the butter/ghee on it
3. Pour one ladle-ful of batter on the pan, and spread using a butter knife or spoon. Please note that you will not be able to make it very thin or with a ladle. This will be slightly thick
4. Cover the non-stick pan with a lid, and let it simmer for 5 mins
5. Check if the side on the pan is browned, and reverse it, so that the other side is slightly toasted too
6. Cut into pieces and serve with coconut chutney
Notes:
1. You can increase the quantity of rye flour to increase the fibre content of this recipe
2. Mix and match yellow and red bell peppers too into this
3. You can also have this rotti with hummus, more protein that way
4. Instead of the coconut + yogurt mixture, you can also use coconut milk. Gives the flavour and still keeps the rotti soft.

Marbled Banana Chocolate Bread

 

With this, I feel arrived! Honestly! :)

After baking the Banana choco-chip cake and loving how it tasted, all I could think was to bake Marble Banana Chocolate bread. Since morning, the procedure to do it was running on my head. The visions of chocolate and banana batter mixing with each other were playing havoc with my mind! The bread wouldnt just leave me alone. I thought of it as I was tadka-dalofying to my dal, as I was driving and as I was having my breakfast. It just had to be baked! I just wasnt sure of the quantities. And earlier experiments have shown that baking without proper ingredients is not good for one’s own sanity! :)

So some search on the internet and I bumped into this recipe. What I totally loved about this recipe was that the procedure and the ingredients I had in mind were exactly these, and it can easily be adapted to be egg-less! :D

As I was baking this a sweet smell engulfed my kitchen and I wished over and over again that I should’ve been able to bottle up the fragrance and let it out later… yes, it was that awesome! Like they show in the advertisements :)

So here it is, Marbled Banana Chocolate Bread -

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour(I used 1:1 ratio of whole wheat and AP flour)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick/2 oz/56g) butter, softened
3 Bananas. Ripe and mashed. (This should be about 1 cup)
4 tbsps yogurt (or 2 eggs)
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips(I used 100 gms of dark chocolate)

Procedure:

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a 9’x3’ bread tin.

Melt the butter just a bit by microwaving it for 30 secs. Melt the chocolate in a separate cup by microwaving it at high for 1 min, and then stir it to mix the lumps.

In a mixing bowl, mix the sugar and butter. Add the mashed bananas and yogurt to this, and mix well.

Sieve the flours with the soda and salt. Add the wet mixture to this and mix it well to a batter consistency.

Take about half a cup of this batter and mix it with chocolate in a separate cup.

Pour the white batter and the chocolate batter alternatively into the bread tin. And mix them with a spoon, just once. The layers should be visible in this bread.

Bake at 180C for about 75 mins. I baked it at 185C for 60 mins and at 170 for 15 mins. Check for the tester to be clean.

Cut it in slices, and serve. This bread stays better and tastes awesome when you let it in the fridge overnight. We ate it for breakfast the next morning, and absolutely loved it!